We have our own focus group right here, and Ruth and I (among others) are coming in on the side of people who want more sports, and you like some of the features that I would rather see on a pre-game show than in the middle of the competition I want to watch.

What I object to is that we have other people in the thread insisting that women like one thing and men like another, in direct contradiction of what is being posted in this very thread. Maybe I'm on a lot of people's ignore list, but Ruth's opinion, and yours, deserve to be heard.

The one thing that I can hope for, I guess, is that figure skating will be covered by a pool feed and shot by people who are used to covering figure skating, and not the ham-handed idiots that just worked the cameras at the US Nationals.

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I have to say, and maybe I'm in different circles than you, but you are much more into sports than most of the women I know. So perhaps you and Ruth are the exception to the rule? (it's an expression, obviously it's not a "rule"). My daughter (who's 14) is as much into sports at her brothers, but very few of her friends are. I think for her, growing up in a house with two much older brothers and her dad being sports crazy just made her the same way.

There was another very good article in the NYT this weekend about how and why they research these things:

At this point, I am already rooting for her to fall on her ass early and out of competition so we don't have to hear it again.

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The only way she doesn't skate four routines (all of which would air on NBC) is if (a) somebody decides not to use her in both rounds of the team competition (each country is allowed 2 substitutions between the short and long programs), or (b) she does so poorly in the individual short program that she's not in the top 18 and so doesn't qualify for the long program.
All three USA ladies' skaters (Gold, "wunderkind" Polina Edmunds, and Ashley Wagner - note that the rules do not allow Mirai Nagasu to be on the team as just part of the team competition) will, almost certainly, have all of their routines air on NBC.
Furthermore, even If, somehow, Gold doesn't medal, I wouldn't be surprised to see NBC talk the organizers into letting her perform in the exhibition the night before the closing ceremonies.

At this point, I am already rooting for her to fall on her ass early and out of competition so we don't have to hear it again.

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Wouldn't it be great if reporters just commented on the performances, instead of falling all over themselves trying to be clever and calling attention to themselves?

Yeah, I know, it won't happen.

Picking up on the link that Steveknj posted -- now I see what the problem is. If ABC hired Ebersol as a researcher at the Olympics, it's no wonder he's got an overblown sense of how important the puff pieces are.

And unlike the 43 ½ hours that ABC televised from Innsbruck, Austria, in 1976, five NBC Universal networks will carry 539 hours of live coverage from Sochi, and nbcolympics.com will stream at least 1,000 more.

It means you could pretty much watch the Olympics any way you want. Don't want to watch the fluff pieces and want to watch the whole events? You can do that via streaming and in some cases via the NBC family of cable channels.

MNF made announcers into celebrities and John Madden made it so that you can be an expert AND be a celebrity (which guys like Cosell weren't exactly experts). Now every broadcaster tries to be a celebrity and in too many cases it gets in the way of the game, which is what I tuned in for. In all honesty there is exactly ONE announcer I've ever tuned in for just because it's him, and that's Vin Scully, who ironically, doesn't try and be a celebrity.

(I should be clearer in that I've tuned in to MNF to here what guys like Dennis Miller or Tony Kornheieser sound like, but after a week, it was back to tuning in to see the game....but, when I get my free week of MLB EI, I make sure to at least tune in to listen to Vin Scully do a game at least once.)

When the Olympics were in L.A. I worked for Sanyo who had like 4 different pins. I got a bunch of them, and then went some of the events, and traded them, ended up with about 20 or so different ones.. If I only knew where they were.

It means you could pretty much watch the Olympics any way you want. Don't want to watch the fluff pieces and want to watch the whole events? You can do that via streaming and in some cases via the NBC family of cable channels.

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Blech on streaming. I have yet to see a sporting event that is watchable streaming except on something as small as an iPad or iPhone. I have a 65 inch tv with some of the most advanced display capabilities (non-4k). And all sports streaming annoys the crap out of me on it. I hate SD. Why would I want to deal with streaming? (And not that nbc's steaming was non-problematic last time.)

Blech on streaming. I have yet to see a sporting event that is watchable streaming except on something as small as an iPad or iPhone. I have a 65 inch tv with some of the most advanced display capabilities (non-4k). And all sports streaming annoys the crap out of me on it. I hate SD. Why would I want to deal with streaming? (And not that nbc's steaming was non-problematic last time.)

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The streams are in HD if your bandwidth can handle it. They looked pretty good two years ago. YMMV.

MNF made announcers into celebrities and John Madden made it so that you can be an expert AND be a celebrity (which guys like Cosell weren't exactly experts). Now every broadcaster tries to be a celebrity and in too many cases it gets in the way of the game, which is what I tuned in for. In all honesty there is exactly ONE announcer I've ever tuned in for just because it's him, and that's Vin Scully, who ironically, doesn't try and be a celebrity.

(I should be clearer in that I've tuned in to MNF to here what guys like Dennis Miller or Tony Kornheieser sound like, but after a week, it was back to tuning in to see the game....but, when I get my free week of MLB EI, I make sure to at least tune in to listen to Vin Scully do a game at least once.)

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I know I'm in the minority, but my rule of thumb is simple. I want the people in the booth to enhance my viewing of the game / event. If the experts tell me something that only a player would notice, that's a big plus; I watch a lot of sports, and even if I were good at sports, there's no way I could have tried to do/play as many as I can watch. And I want them to bring the experience of being at the game. In the good way, not the "I'm at the game and some tall loudmouthed jerk has just sat in the seat in front of me" way.

One year I was watching men's figure skating at US Nationals.* ABC had brought in Kurt Browning to sit in with Dick Button during the men's singles. ABC was always superb at capturing the special atmosphere at US Nationals, but this was genius, in part because Kurt is Canadian and had never been to a US Nationals before. Anyway, we had two skaters who had been the best at pushing the envelope in men's skating in their era, geeking out on what was happening technically. Imagine *two* HoF home-run hitters discussing the mechanics of people's swings in replays or two HoF pitchers describing a pitching duel during the World Series. It was fantastic. (pardon the pun)

What can I say? I'm a geek. Sports fascinate me because I like physics. One of the things Dick Button picked up on was that one of the skaters was spotting his rotations like a ballet dancer does (fixating on a single point, then 'snapping' his head around) instead of just spinning with his head in the same position like skaters usually do. Dick claimed that the skater would never master a quad jump until he stopped doing that. He's probably right (who am I to argue with a two-time Olympic gold medalist) but the point is, I hadn't noticed the skater was doing that until Dick pointed that out. All of the details that Dick pointed out during his long tenure as an expert commentator, I learned to watch out for, for myself. This is what I want from an expert commentator -- to become a better viewer because of their commentary.

I'm sure a producer would say that nobody cares about stuff like that except for Dick Button and me, but I don't know how you can gain new long-time viewers for a sport unless you help them understand what is going on.

I've watched enough figure skating and equestrian events now that I know when some jumps have gone bad at the moment of takeoff. I may not be able to articulate what is wrong in real time, but I know that things are not going to end well. Casual viewers who only see these sports during the Olympics are not going to get the experience it takes to see these things. IMHO the more you know, like being able to hear the difference in the sound of a home-run ball or a broken-bat hit when you're watching baseball, the more you enjoy the game.

*Edited to add: the nerd-fest conversation I was remembering between Dick Button and Kurt Browning was actually during the men's competition at Skate America 2005. I was looking at old recordings yesterday and stumbled on it. Dick was initially talking about the skater's jumping technique during the warm-up session, and talked about it again during the actual performance.

Blech on streaming. I have yet to see a sporting event that is watchable streaming except on something as small as an iPad or iPhone. I have a 65 inch tv with some of the most advanced display capabilities (non-4k). And all sports streaming annoys the crap out of me on it. I hate SD. Why would I want to deal with streaming? (And not that nbc's steaming was non-problematic last time.)

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If you asked me 4 or 5 years ago, I'd agree with you. I stream lots of stuff on my TV these days and for all the "name" websites (Netflix, Amazon, the networks) I can't even tell the difference between a stream and a satellite feed. That said, live TV, especially from half way around the world could be a little glitchy, but I'm not sure. For folks that have MLB EI for example, that wasn't bad when I had it 3-4 years ago, so I would imagine it's better now. Can you corroborate?

Still, if you want to watch something live bad enough, it's available. and the sub networks of NBC will have a lot of it via your content provider (USA, NBCSN, etc.)